This invention relates to Global Positioning System (GPS) techniques. A common pastime when driving a car or other vehicle is to listen to radio broadcasts. One problem many drivers frequently face is to run into poor reception of radio stations, or even a complete lack of service if the driver moves out of range of a radio station.
People also often have specific tastes for radio broadcasts, such as country music, classical music, news broadcasts, easy listening music, sports broadcasts, and so on. When a driver moves out of range of a particular radio station or when the quality of the reception gets worse, for example, when driving between two cities or across several states, the driver must search through available stations to find a new radio station that has good reception and an agreeable selection of content. This process may be inconvenient, especially on longer trips where the driver passes through several cities or states. It can also pose a potential traffic danger, as the driver's attention may be more focused on searching for a good radio station than on what is happening on the road.
A current solution for avoiding situations like the ones described above, is to use a satellite radio, which allows drivers to listen to music broadcast through a satellite in space. The drawback to this solution is that the driver is typically required to invest in a special satellite radio device and to pay a monthly or yearly membership or subscription fee to the provider of the satellite radio broadcasts. Such fees can sometimes be prohibitively expensive to many individuals. Thus, it would be desirable to provide a lower cost alternative that makes available an improved broadcast quality and genre selection of radio stations to drivers.